Demons at Night
by Incognito Temptation
Summary: All of our favorite ninja are haunted by something. [SERIES, chapter five, Kakashi]
1. Criminal, Sakura

**Demons at Night**

* * *

It isn't the act of killing that haunts Sakura, but rather, living with herself afterwards. 

She sees her victims (_but they weren't really victims; they were killers too_) in her dreams at night. Their arms reach outwards, but it's never her that they're grabbing for. It looks as if they are grabbing for memories they've lost, or family members they will never see again.

She tries to remind herself that everyone she kills is a shinobi, that they've probably killed innocent people, or they wouldn't be in a bingo book somewhere.

Sometimes her victims (_they're not victims, really_) look so young that she can hardly bear to bring the knife down. She specializes in medical-related deaths; stopping someone's heart, or cutting a crucial vein.

Most of the time, they bleed to death. She hates when they die with their eyes open, because then she has to close them, and see the terror there.

But sometimes she is generous. Sometimes she uses anesthetics and painkillers, so her victims (_not victims_) can slip away without feeling anything.

No matter how they die, though, she sees their faces at night.

The first nightmare nearly destroyed her…she couldn't remember ever crying that much out of guilt. But then the nightmares came easier and easier, three people here and five over there, all of them dead.

The dead used to form in lines inside her head, but now they form in piles that waste away. Her victims (_mothers, daughters, children, loving fathers – they really were victims_) reach out, reach past the bodies that bury them, and suffocate them to…death?

Surely they can't die again…

But she relives their deaths every night.

There are so many of them now that she can't recall their names. She doesn't know which villages they hailed from, or what crime they were responsible for.

She kills criminals so that they can't kill anyone else, but it's gotten so bad that she doesn't even remember who is a criminal and who is not.

Is she a criminal too, for ridding the world of those who after all, are just like her?

Every shinobi is a criminal. –She's just one of the few who stops to think about it.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **I plan to continue this. It should have about seven or eight chapters, each from a different character's point of view. I can't guarantee that I will update soon, but just know that I do intend to. 

Demons at Night - inner demons, guilt, nightmares. All of that good stuff.


	2. Voices, Gaara

**Demons at Night**

* * *

It's not his fault that he kills people. The voice tells him to, and he does it.

Life is a checkerboard, and he is one of the regular pieces. He isn't King, no matter how much he longs to be in control. Shukaku is King.

Sometimes, he believes that he can change the way things are. Sometimes he falls for illusions of someday being Kazekage, of being a _good _Kazekage that everyone _admires _and _loves_…but the concept of someone actually loving him seems so far away.

He can reach up to his forehead and stroke the kanji there, "Ai," Love, but it isn't the same as someone really loving him.

There is Sisterly Love, and Brotherly Love, and something that he thought was love from Yashamaru, but he has never come across the type of love only a father or a mother can give, or love that only a non-family member can give.

What is Love, anyway? Shukaku doesn't need it. Gaara doesn't need it if Shukaku doesn't provide it.

And Shukaku certainly doesn't provide it, whatever it is.

Shukaku gives out commands, (_kill him_, _destroy her_, _blood blood blood_) and pushes Gaara past his limits, and past boundaries that the "good" Gaara had once set.

Even if Gaara plugs his ears, he can still hear that voice, telling him to do things that he knows are wrong, things that he's done before and doesn't want to do again.

The voice is always there, and sometimes it seems there is nothing else.

He is not King. He has no people. He has no control. He has nothing.

Nothing but the voice.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Two chapters in one day, and two more drabbles. Hm. I'm making some progress here. 


	3. Dark, Shikamaru

**Demons at Night**

* * *

It's almost ironic. In fact, it really is ironic, but he won't admit it.

What would the others think of big, bad Shikamaru if they knew he was afraid of the dark? _Shadow Controller_ Shikamaru…reduced to a cowering fraud when there are shadows all around him.

Maybe it's just that so many shadows—complete darkness—is overwhelming. Maybe the power drives him insane.

Or maybe…he's afraid of the dark.

It's frustrating when there aren't enough shadows on the ground for him to use in an attack, but absolutely terrifying to think that there are too many.

Shikamaru was never a greedy child. He ate what was on his plate, and that was it. No asking for seconds, or inessential things like dessert.

When there are more shadows than his attacks require, he lets the extras rest. Let a sleeping dog lie. Let the shadows be.

At nighttime when he retires to his bedroom for sleep, there are shadows everywhere. He lies as still as possible, not wanting to disturb them, because they close in all around him…they could crush him.

One night, when he was too young to know better, he confided in his father about his fear of darkness. Shikaku Nara is a serious man, and little Shikamaru was in awe as his father laughed a hearty laugh and patted him on the back.

"Don't be so paranoid, kid," His father told him, "Go back to bed."

So on that night, Shikamaru did as he was told. He went to his room and climbed into his bed, and yawned. (But he stayed awake until morning.)

Shikamaru is most certainly not paranoid. He is wary, maybe, but not paranoid.

If you had nightmares about shadow clones choking you—the shadows betraying you, attacking you as you had attacked others—you'd be wary too.

He is wary because he has seen dozens nearly die, and a few people actually killed, as a result of shadows.

Shikamaru knows his own strength. He is well-educated on the danger of shadows.

It's everyone else that's stupid. They're not paranoi—wary enough.

They're not wary enough.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Uh-oh, Shikamaru is in denial. _And _he's paranoid. I guess I'd be paranoid if I had dreams about the Kage Kubi Shibari too.

TBC with another character.


	4. Lies, Sasuke

**Demons at Night**

* * *

The problem with people, Sasuke decided, is that they lie. They _pretend_ and they _lie_, and they only do it when he needs the truth.

Some days he is content with settling for a lie. However, this was not the case the night he left for power.

He needed to hear truth in Sakura's words, as she whispered frantically, helplessly, pleading with him to stay. He needed to hear that he would be missed, that he had been loved, but more than anything, he needed to hear release.

As tears began to slide down her cheeks, illuminated by the subtle, cool and lambent shine of the moon, he knew that what he wanted, he would not find.

She couldn't let him go, but he went anyway. Knowing that she would follow in his steps, tailing him…well, that knowledge made his departure that much harder.

He wanted her to let go of it all. He wanted her to miss him, but not so terribly that she would feel compelled to track him down. He wanted her to feel close to him somehow, no matter how far away he was, and he wanted…he wanted 'feeling close' to be enough.

He wanted to hear her _say it_, to confirm that she would be fine without him. Confirmation never came; certainly not when she and Naruto caught up with him years later.

Sakura wasn't supposed to become involved in Orochimaru's affairs. And Naruto, that stubborn fool, he wasn't supposed to either!

What Sasuke wanted that night, he never got. Not entirely, at least.

She ran towards him, desperately at first, with an outstretched arm. When she was within two arms reach, she stopped.

As the minutes ticked away, they were not empty. The minutes were filled with high-pitched begging, and sounds of a foolish girl choking on her own tears. And with the passing of each minute, she took timid, careful steps forward.

When she was close enough her fingertips could brush his chest, he disappeared. He went behind her, saying, "Thank you."

_Thank you for trying to say goodbye. Thank you for giving me half of what I wanted. Thank you…for not pushing me into taking you along with me. Thank you for not exerting the power you knew you had over me._

_Thank you for caring. Thank you for holding on when I wanted you to let go. Thank you for being so devoted. Hopelessly devoted._

And in the moment his hand connected with the back of her neck, her cries gone from the air, he thought of another reason to thank her.

_Thank you…for being annoying. _

Though he would never admit it, the quiet days he was prepared to spend in Otogakure would probably be the most miserable days of his life. Without someone—without Sakura—there at his side, whining out strings of "Sasuke-kun!" and other such nonsense, he would not be complete.

His last minutes with her were full of feeling, and, in the minutes spent without her, the shell of his being was full of nothing.

Minutes in Otogakure were silent, conflict-free, pensive, and wasted. He wasted away without her.

_I remember playing cat-and-mouse._

_Was I the cat, Sakura? The big, bad cat? Or was I…was I maybe…the trembling little mouse that tried to hide?_

_I hid from you and Naruto._

_And you pounced on me when you got the chance._

"_You're welcome," you said. _

_Thank you again. Thank you for being the big, bad cat, for being annoying and persistent. Thank you for making it so hard for me to leave, and for making it so easy for me to return._

He wasted away, imagining things on his own, and "you're welcome" never came. Confirmation never came. Again, what he wanted to hear never came.

And he never returned.

He told her once, when they met while playing cat-and-mouse, that he would return when his revenge had been completed.

He lied. People lie.

That's what's wrong with people…the fact that they lie.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **To help you make sense of this one, I'd like to say that during the part where Sasuke says "thank you for giving me half of what I wanted", he is given the knowledge that he will be missed, and that he was definitely loved, but he is also deprived of something along the lines of "It's okay, Sasuke, you can go", which is what (in my mind) he wanted from that night more than anything.

I wrote this with the intention of making it into a oneshot, but I figured that lies could be a fear of Sasuke's. Lies could be what drove him insane. (Because we all figured out—when he drew a sword on Naruto during Shippuuden—that he was insane.)

I love Sasuke, really, I do, but he isn't mentally well.

TBC


	5. Colors and Vision, Kakashi

**Demons at Night**  
Five,  
Colors (Vision), Kakashi

He's a legend.

"Watch out for his eye," the bingo books say.

He's wanted in most of the smaller villages, and everyone knows that when his hitai-ate comes up and his eye comes out, it's time to run…run, and hope you can do it fast enough.

But Kakashi is getting old.

There was a time when he could have probably won a marathon, or beat each member of ANBU in a race. There was a time when he knew well enough to elbow the others out of the way and take what he wanted, take the life of another and receive payment for it.

There was a time when he didn't mind killing so much, when he was almost eager for missions. But then 'time' became longer and longer because he was the best around and everyone knew it, and they all knew they couldn't outrun him, and they knew he would live forever.

He plans on living for as long as possible, but certainly not forever.

If he has to survive in a world with fewer people, so be it. But he doesn't want to be responsible for cutting down the population anymore.

Some days, when the sun shines into his room and he groggily wakes up, turning to the picture frames behind his bed like he always does, when the sun reflects off of the frames and the glare hides everything but Obito's happy face…on these days, he isn't sure he wants to be part of the population at all.

Some days, on certain missions, when his Sharingan comes out to play and the air spoofs into it and _stings stings stings_, he isn't sure that he is so blessed to have it.

Some days when he looks into the mirror and sees the red in his eye there, he thinks of how Obito's blood was red when it was all over him, and how the stripes on Rin's cheeks had been red, and how the leaf emblem on Arashi Sensei's sleeve was red.

And on these days, he looks around in the rest of the bathroom and sees the blue walls, and he thinks of how Arashi Sensei wore casual blue shirts a lot, and how he himself used to wear a lot of blue.

And then he goes to his bedroom and makes a beeline for the white closet (_white, like the zipper on Obito's jacket, and like the white in his teammates' eyes_) and he pulls out his old outfit from the top shelf, and sees that it is definitely blue, and thinks of how Arashi Sensei's eyes were blue too.

So on these days when he is drowning in memories, he thinks it might be nice to drown in the shower instead, and so he steps back into the bathroom and walks over the green shower mat (_green, like the tree that Rin slipped out of once, and like the grass beneath our feet as the four of us ran together on missions, and green like Arashi Sensei's Jounin vest, and like how on certain days Obito wore a green coat, and how sometimes in just the right light Rin's eyes looked really green_).

And when Kakashi is finally finished with his shower, he grabs a towel and remembers that though he bought his towels white, they look more gray now, and then he asks himself, _Weren't Obito's goggles gray?_

And then when he is so overcome by everything inside his house, he steps out onto the porch and sees the colors all around outside, and every color reminds him of something.

And on these days, these tragic days—every day—he wishes that he couldn't see any of the colors. He wishes Obito hadn't offered him his stupid eye; he wishes that he didn't have eyes at all, and he wishes he could bring himself to just gouge his eyes out once and for all, but he knows that he doesn't have the guts, and he knows that he will go on living safely forever.

Kakashi is going to live forever. He just wishes he could do it blind.

TBC.


End file.
